Tony and Gill go Adventure Racing!

The Mountain to sound Race is a 5man 100mile relay event that was held last Sunday in Washington state. It starts up a mountain and ends by the sea. 17m mountin bike, 46miles road ride, Kiyak, 1/2 marathon, 6miles spint.

Overall time 7hrs 28mins

Overall position 17th

Overal Co-ed class position 1st!

Seth who works at Tacoma Bike arranged the team and logistics.

We had a last minuit dropout when one of our team was too ill to start the day so Seth took over his mountain bike leg. Seth doesnt own a mountain bike so we had to throw some cross tyres on his hybrid. This actualy worked very well as it meant that Gill could take over Seths place in the 6 mile glory run at the end.

Tony drafting Seths Jeep at 45mph downhill

We are soooo lucky

So Eric works with cars and boats. His boss, Bruce, has a house on a lake where he can indulge his passion for both cars and boats. We've been there twice now. As Jody said when we were there, aren't we all just so lucky to be happy, healthy and here enjoying all this?

I don't know what this is, but I'm sure if you do know it's impressive... This was the day after I did the Sound to Narrows run. I was rather pleased with myself. We ate Mexican-style prawns that Bruce had caught fresh the day before. YUM.

Eric gets one of the boats ready to go out. The last ones we went in had a top speed of about 50 with people in. This one goes 70 easily. You can see the result of that a few posts down!

The view from the bridge...


Bruce explains the fine art of jet ski riding to a very excited Tony. He wants one now. Thank goodness we live on the 2nd floor!

View from their cove.

Finishing the day off with a fire is the only way to do it. It also helps stop midgies biting you on the forehead. Wish I'd known that first!

I wish I was four again

Our friends Dean and Heidi have 2 wonderful boys. You met Talon at the baseball game. This is Logan. He is in 4-year old heaven as he gets his Batman pyjamas for his birthday. Logan enjoys working the crowd as we all sing Happy Birthday for him.

This is the community breakfast that Dean and Heidi and their friends organize for their neighbourhood. It happens every now and again in the summer. They put on a free breakfast and people come out and meet each other. Next door neighbours have spoken to each other for the first time in years here. Genius.

Going to the zoo-oo-oo

Point Defiance Zoo is the best zoo either of us have ever been to. We spent about 5 hours there and went to all their talks. We learnt how to train elephants, mate tigers and defend ourselves like a procupine. Tony found out that the Gibbons do sing and that we can go hear them. Hurray!

Here are a few of the gems.

Our new cars

....in our dreams

Lookin good

As you know, Tony and I always like to look good. We are taking special pride in our appearances here in America and decided to take in a little Botox and entirely natural, 100% organic, kind to dolphins facelifts. The results were varied...

James and the Giant Peach

This is the story of Tony, George and Chris who one day decided to go skating at 4 local skate parks in 5 hours, with a tea break.

This is Tony with his early 90's board that Chris let him borrow. George is testing out the ramp rail in the background. Chris is having a break.

Owing to the outrageous health system here in the States, we were pleased to see that safety was a going concern.

The Milton Massif were all at school at 3pm on a Tuesday leaving the old guys to rock and roll




Parasite Girl checks George out at Puyallup Park

Tony gets some air with a 'that board's older than I am' 360 flip grab at Lakewood









No messin'. It really is that big. University Place.

Tony wins a bike race

This is SIR or Seatle International Raceway.
Go here to check out what they do here http://pacificraceways.com/ look at the videos and the Course 'Hot' lap to see the circuit.
They hold bicycle races here every tuesday night.
I turned up on my old steel Pegoretti with down tube shifters and 32spoke wheels in a 1990s hot pink Kaiku (yogurt maker) jersey. I tore thier legs of in the sprints and won th points competition and $16 bucks. Sweet!


Then we headed to the parkway pub to spend the winnings on booze. Earn your beer!

Happy Monday

At lunch today we stopped into our favorite tea shop (The Mad Hatter) and were invited to a free B-Movie night at a local bar by the owner Tobin(Im fixing a bike for him to lend to his customers)
After getting out of the Bike shop late due to people wanting to buy new bikes (one of which had just driven his 12k carbon bicycle into the garage door frame, forgetting he still had his bike on the roof of his car!) We headed over to Sandys house for the now weekly pot luck. Loveley people, amazing house, fantastic food (will take the camera next week). Over dinner Chris (the guy who introduced us to Sandy) managed to volunteer to help at local wedding in two weeks time. Due to his enthusiam and uncanny aptitude for the role Chris was assigned the important task of taping the cards to the wedding gifts (so that presents could be traced to donors when it comes time to write the thankyou letters).
After dinner at Sandys we roped Chris into coming to the film night. Where I bought raffle tickets and we won the contents of the picture above. And listed below:
1. A parasite Pals erasing set. With removable stomach parasite! Gill thinks this is her.
2 A sushi coaster set. Which is being used to protect my table right now (from Tea bought from Tobin)
3. A $20 voucher for Twokoi. A local sushi restaurant. Yum!
4 Sushi Tape: Tape with pictures of sushi on. Which of course was donated to Chris to be used in his role as Head of Taping.
Monday turned out nice.....

Sunday breakfast at the Buckingham

Fresh eggs and fresh smoked Alaskan salmon and fresh coffee made in our cool new coffee machine.

10mins from our house after dinner

After our dinner of fresh organic Asparagus(grown down the road and deliverd in our new veg box. yay) soup, we borrowed a small car and drove 2mins from the front door of our house to the waterfront. We then followed the coastfor 10mins to the local park where we saw, a baby fox, a racoon and views over the water to the nearby peninsulars.

another day in Tacoma

It's been 28-30 degrees for the last 4 days and more.

Today my sister in England asked me, 'So am I talking to you in the past then?'